Save the middle ground: Hug a radical

Here’s a message for all the
"radical centrists" out there, those who have decided that the best
way to manage the public lands is to sit down at the table with
ranchers, off-roaders and everyone in between, to come up with a
plan everyone agrees on: The next time you run into a radical,
thank her for preparing your table.

It’s something
that hit me recently, as I listened to a centrist colleague berate
an anti-grazing activist for his alleged lack of a clue. "He needs
to get out and travel a little," said my colleague.

But
this centrist neglected a few facts. First, the anti-grazing
activist has done plenty of travelling, and seen plenty of public
rangeland that’s been chewed to within an inch of its life by
cattle and sheep. And second, anti-grazing activists and their ilk
have probably done as much for "consensus" efforts as anyone. It
sounds trite, but without the extremes, there would be no
center.

Take Idaho’s Owyhee region. Ranchers and
environmentalists in the Owyhee haven’t gotten together
because they’re looking for a social opportunity. These
people are spending untold hours at the negotiating table because
the alternative isn’t pretty: Barring some sort of
compromise, ranchers know that lawsuits from the cow-free crowd
will be the last nail in their coffins. At the same time,
environmentalists know that the Bush administration may open
wilderness study areas to off-road vehicle riders, unchecked
grazing and God knows what else.

Calling it "consensus" is
probably a stretch; "hard bargaining" might be closer to the truth.
Environmentalists want to protect wilderness. Ranchers want to keep
their place on the public lands. Both sides realize that with a
little give-and-take, they may be able to accomplish both of their
goals.

These centrists have reason to gripe about the
meddling radicals. Even as the hard-liners on both sides have
helped create the middle ground in the Owyhee and elsewhere, they
are now doing their darnedest to tear it apart. Meanwhile,
middle-of-the-roaders are getting little support from up
high.

When it comes to the public lands, the Bush
administration talks a good line about wanting locals to make
decisions. But in reality, the administration has been scornful of
everything but corporate energy development. Not only has it
trashed decades of work identifying and studying potential
wilderness areas, it has also sunk collaborative efforts. The
casualties include a proposal that would have brought grizzly bears
back to the Selway and Bitterroot mountains on the Idaho-Montana
border, and a plan for energy development on Colorado’s Roan
Plateau that might have left a little too much of the place
untouched.

So here’s a message for all the
hard-liners out there: It might behoove you to turn the other way
and let some of these "consensus" deals pass through. They are our
best chance at getting some land protected before we’re all
pushing up daisies, and the Bush administration has unleashed the
oil companies on our gravesites.